Which was the point. Nobody left Slough House at the end of a working day feeling like they’d contributed to the security of the nation. They left it feeling like their brains had been fed through a juicer. Louisa had dreams of being trapped in a telephone directory. The fuck-up that had put her with the slow horses had been bad—a messed-up surveillance job resulting in a large quantity of guns being dumped on the street—but she’d surely been punished enough. Except the point was, no amount of punishment was enough. She could set her own terms, serve her own sentence, and walk away whenever she felt like it. That was what she was supposed to do: give it up and walk away. So, like all the rest of them, it was the last thing she’d ever do. Something Min had said—no, don’t think about Min. Anyway, without discussing it, she knew they all felt the same way. Except for Roderick Ho, who was too much of an arsehole to realise he was being punished, which, given he was being punished for being an arsehole, seemed apt.
And meanwhile, her brain felt like it had been fed through a juicer.
The man was still talking, might even be reaching the climax of his anecdote, and Louisa was more certain than she was of anything else that whatever this turned out to be, she didn’t want to hear it. Without turning to face him, she placed a hand on his wrist. It was like using a remote: his story ended, mid-air.
“I’m going to have two more of these,” she said. “If you’re still here when I’m done, I’ll go home with you. But in the meantime, shut the fuck up, okay? Not a word. That’s a deal-breaker.”
He was smarter than he’d so far suggested. Without a sound, he waved for the bartender, pointed at Louisa’s glass, and raised two fingers.
Louisa faded him out, and got to work on her drink.
Shoot me now, thought Marcus again, this time not out loud.
Shirley was having fun with the idea Ho fancied his chances with Louisa. “That is brilliant. Have we got a noticeboard? We are so going to need one.” She made a crosshatch sign with her fingers. “Hashtag deludedmale.”
The bar was the far side of the Barbican Centre, and Ho thought he’d suggested it because it was a favourite dive of his, somewhere he hung with his friends, but the truth was Marcus had never set foot in it before, and had picked it for precisely that reason. It was exactly the kind of place he’d wager money no actual friend of his would ever set foot, so the chances of running into any of them while in company with Roderick Ho were minimal.
On the other hand, wagering money was what had got him here in the first place, so placing further bets wasn’t his wisest course.
A giant TV screen fixed to a wall was tuned to rolling news. The breaking-headline ribbon was unspooling too quickly to follow, but the picture would have been difficult not to identify: blue suit, yellow tie, artfully tousled haystack of hair and a plummy grin you’d have to be a moron or a voter not to notice concealed a degree of self-interest that would alienate a shark. The brand-new Home Secretary, meaning Marcus’s new boss, and Shirley’s, and Ho’s, not that the relationship would bother Peter Judd—to attract his attention, you had to have royal connections, a TV show or enhanced breasts (“allegedly”). Straddling the gap between media-whore and political beast, he’d long since made the leap from star-fucker to star-fucked, stealing the public affection with shows of buffoonery, and gaining political ascendancy by way of the Hollywood-sanctioned dictum that you keep your enemies close. It was one way of dealing with him, but old Westminster hands agreed that he couldn’t have been more of a threat to the PM if he’d been on the opposition benches. Which, if the opposition had looked likely to win an election soon, he doubtless would have been.
To borrow an assessment,
To coin another, “Honky twerp,” muttered Marcus.
“Hate speech,” warned Shirley.
“Of course it’s hate speech. I fucking hate him.”
Shirley glanced at the TV, shrugged, and said, “Thought you were one of the party faithful.”
“I am. He’s not.”
Ho was looking from one to the other, as if he’d entirely lost his place.
Shirley returned her attention to him. “So when did it start, this insane notion you might be in with a chance with Louisa?”
Ho said, “I can read the signs.”
“You couldn’t read welcome on a doormat. You seriously think you can read a woman?”
Ho shrugged. “Bitch is ripe,” he said. “Bitch is
Shirley backhanded him. His spectacles went flying.
Marcus said, “That’ll be my round, then.”
•••
Friend or foe?
There was no getting round it, anyone from that time of her life was a foe.
